We recently completed a series called, “Come Home” about the life of Jonah. It may seem odd to reference Jonah on Good Friday, but Jonah’s story pictures the depth of God’s plan for the world. "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). Jonah’s story was a picture of the coming Messiah and His message of grace to an undeserving world.
But Jonah’s story is also the story of many of us as Christians. Jonah was a good guy. He was committed to the moral guidelines God had established but he wasn’t fully surrendered to God’s purposes in the world.
Jonah reveals in chapter three that he is consumed with the fact that he’s uncomfortable, depressed, and bitter about God’s grace to the “undeserving” and ready to go home to the safe and prosperous confines of the familiar. God calls him out for being obsessed with the wrong things and shockingly unaware of his own desperate need for God’s grace. To paraphrase His words, “Jonah, I am concerned about this generation of people (120,000 Ninevites), what are you concerned about?”
As many of us approach Easter weekend, we are in many ways surrendered to living morally. We are “good Christians” but are we concerned about the right things? For instance, are we concerned about this generation of people who are dying and going to Hell? Jonah foreshadowed the death, burial and resurrection of Christ that would cancel the debt of sin and release us from the power of sin. Do we forget already how shockingly undeserving we are? Are we aware of the desperate need of those around us or are we going to just purchase some new clothes and work in a church service this weekend?
Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face—whose mercy you have professed to obey—and tell him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world. (William Booth)
This Easter it’s more than responding to the Gospel by obeying the laws of God to make yourself feel better; it’s about surrendering to his concerns for the world. Take advantage of this Easter weekend and invite a friend to hear the message of Jesus. Be bold to start a conversation that may open a door.
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